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April 17, 1999

Comments on the Lost Song Discovery by Bruce Miller:

We thought this might be an opportunity to clarify somepoints which have been raised in the recent publicity.

1. Neil Midkiff wrote about the CBS radio feed in whichit was suggested that we are supposed to have recovered"75 percent" of the vocal lines. It is difficult, if notimpossible, to quantify (via a percentage) in a soundbite a complex discovery and reconstruction. The criteria used to reduce the results in that way can be variable anddifficult to define. In other words, do we go by number of measures, number of notes, and/or the duration of the notes? Also, in the case of "Reflect, my child" there is a refrain for which there are *two* vocal lines.

   Helga and I have reflected on the CBS interview, and wewould suggest to Neil and all of you that our initial announcement explained the situation best. A substantial portion of the original vocal lines can be confirmed with certainly or near certainty in the following places:

   a) The entire refrain, which is about twice as long as that of the Duke's song in Patience. The melodic line (Josephine's) and the harmony line (The Captain's) are quite obviously shadowed in the orchestral accompaniment and there is little room for a significant variant reconstruction.

   b) The final phrase of the verse is also strongly confirmed, first by the octave scoring in the strings which most probably doubled the Captain's melody, and at the end of the phrase by voice cues in two band parts.

   The remainder of the verse has had to be reconstructedfrom the context provided by the orchestration, whichdoes not contain much melodic material.

2. During the question/answer session following thepresentation at the Society for Textual Scholarshipon Thursday, a woman asked me a question concerninghow much input we received from performers when"rehearsing" a reconstruction. I didn't follow hercompletely at the time, but subsequently realizedthat what she really wanted to know was: did weseek or receive input from performing musiciansin preparing such a reconstruction.

However, I could also have mentioned that in the case ofHelga's and mine, we are both experienced performers:I was trained as a singer and organist as well as a conductor, Helga is a percussionist and double bassist, so we are bothwell aware of the performing issues. Most musicologistshave some performing experience, but it is probably fairto say that we are more engaged in that way thanmany.

In addition, we have had the input of the singers andpianist (who is also a respected coach) whenpreparing the demonstration tape played at the STS,and we have actively encouraged feedback andsuggestions from the artists who will be performingthe music at Buxton.

We hope this assists in the understanding ofwhat we have done.

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